This document discusses influence and influencer marketing. It defines influence as the ability to move people toward valuable action, usually a purchase. It notes that influencers are trusted information sources that help consumers along the path to a conversion. The document provides tips on finding influencers by looking within one's own network and communities, researching online groups, and asking for recommendations. It also offers advice on building relationships with influencers by consuming their content, participating in their world, and supporting their efforts without asking for anything in return. Finally, it discusses activating influencers by creating an active community, helping influencers with their problems, and empowering passionate supporters.
The most powerful influence in the world is one person REALY listening to another person.This is word of mouth right, the back bone of marketing. When a company is doing things amazingly well, hitting on all cylinders, word of mouth movements happen on their own. Today, when I talk about influence the goal is to get you to do things this way, to reinvest in the customer, to run your business in a way and primes it for influencers to spread the news.
Starts and stopsSlows downHard to see. Hard to track
But we always see the end action. The conversion. The question is, what is below the surface? How does the consumer get to that final action?
But we always see the end action. The conversion. The question is, what is below the surface? How does the consumer get to that final action?
When we talk about influencer marketing, we are talking about finding moments of accelerationAlong that path of influence. And the people that can drive those moments of acceleration.
So why does it matter to frame the conversation of influence around this points.Focusing on a path of influence that consumers take.
The influence of others can drive all our decisions. And it does. But the better way to think about this is how the consumer comes to a decision or gets moved toward an action. Consumers build a database of trusted information that guide their decisions. Constantly changing inputs. Constantly changing information.
This database of trusted information drives influence. Drives action. Drives our decisions. Influence is not about one individual affecting others. It is about, for businesses, figuring out who and what your consumers’ trusted information sources are.
Example: buying a TV. Learning about it from many sources over weeks and months. Adding and removing options for consideration. There might not be one big moment of acceleration.
CC Chapman buying a new suitcase that he saw Chris Brogan do a video about.
Authority (respect, experience, social proof)Relevance (proximity, topic, culture)Audience (size, scope, reach, commitment)Frequency (quantity, consistency, creativity)Emotion (story telling, close relationship, common bond)The more of these items you can check off the better. Some people trust their neighbors, many don’t. Some people trust their family, but still know they can’t really give them advice on what the latest digital camera to buy is. We instead create personal experts from these building blocks. We talk to suzy about healthy food and todd about workouts and jeremy about politics. We build trust experts according to these building blocks. And these people have larger influence than others. One of the most targeted types of influencers most businesses will target and come into contact with is a topic influencer. For the consumers this comes into play as a trust expert. Someone we, as individuals, listen to about specific topics. With this comes relevance. A cornerstone of the influencer equation.The same thing happens online.
Authority (respect, experience, social proof)Relevance (proximity, topic, culture)Audience (size, scope, reach, commitment)Frequency (quantity, consistency)Emotion (story telling, close relationship, common bond, creativity)The more of these items you can check off the better. Some people trust their neighbors, many don’t. Some people trust their family, but still know they can’t really give them advice on what the latest digital camera to buy is. We instead create personal experts from these building blocks. We talk to suzy about healthy food and todd about workouts and jeremy about politics. We build trust experts according to these building blocks. And these people have larger influence than others. The same thing happens online.
bloggers help explain why Cirque du Soleil is so unique.Jessica Berlin, Cirque’s Social Media Manager, invited 250 bloggers to attend a show of their choice and share their genuine feedback on their respective blogs. This resulted in significant chatter on blogs and twitter about the “Cirque Experience.” By simply engaging members of the blogger community, Jessica was able to convert them into brand ambassadors. This served as a great case study of a brand leveraging blogger outreach to establish a community.They target who they invite to experience every show. Each of their 20+ shows is different. The audience is different. The outreach is different.
One of the leading social media invested companies period. Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, outreach, etc. Built close personal relationships with the entire social media industry.Daily twitter users are up to 400% more likely to blog, upload videos, or write reviews online. So if you have an army of these content creators, you are pretty well poised to fight off a potential crisis. As we said before, influence does not fix bad products or bad service, but it can push out the right information and quickly.
Viral video campaigns of the past worked, but nothing on this scale. Facebook fans grew by 118%YouTube subscribers grew 227%Twitter followers saw the biggest bump at 2,800% growth
What can influencers do for our businesses?
Look close – Look at your own followers, your own community, your own employeesExporty, flowtown, Rapleaf, rapportive, CRMLoud customers: New customers, Grieving customers
Identify groups: Look for Meetup groups, clubs, Ning sites, forums etc that relate to your industry or niche • Use tools like Blogdash and Technorati to help find individual bloggers that stand out in their niche • Research the links and blogrolls of sites you find that already match your influencer targets • Identify Twitter chats that match your niche and use Rowfeeder & Simply Measured to find the leaders and most active users • Research the topic you are focusing on through YouTube, Digg, Reddit, etc
Reach out – Compose a list as contentBlog about itUse Twitter or quora to ask the massesAsk employeesHire someone (investinsocial.com)
Ok, you found them. Now what?
Read their blog, subscribe to RSS and Youtube, sign up for a newsletterLeave comments, retweet, ask questions, promotePay attention to any current partnerships they have, if they specify what they create content on, how they prefer to be contactedEmail them to introduce yourself without asking for somethingProvide content, guest blog, create content, Learning the ecosystem is probably the most valuable point here. Shift communications did a big blogger outreach campaign last year for Slydial, a new app that let you leave a voicemail for someone without calling them. Every single pitch of theirs was personal. • 381 blog posts in one month • 200,000 beta users in less than two weeksThis goes for more than just learning about bloggers or Twitter. Learn about the people you are making contact with.
How do we actually get the influencers to help your business. This is of course the toughest challenge
Culture – Invite to real world events Create “official” championsCommunity traditions and vernacularHelp them – solve their problems, give them creative assets, make them experts, connect them to useful people, give them previews of products and servicesgive them insights into the company, assets, special treatment, meet celebrities, test products, free stuff, moneyMake them influencers – find passionate consumers and use your brand to help make them important. To give them a platformCompliment them